Sipes serve, for example in the case of utility vehicle tires, for breaking up the water film in the case of a wet roadway in order to achieve improved wet characteristics of the tread.
In the case of passenger motor vehicle tires, the sipes are formed in vehicle tires for use under winter driving conditions and serve for example for improving driving characteristics on winter roads by virtue of an increased number of gripping edges being provided and by virtue of the snow that is received in the sipes increasing the adhesion of the tire by way of a snow-on-snow intermeshing action.
A tread profile as per the preamble has become known from DE 100 49 936 B4. DE 100 49 936 B4 relates to a tread profile composed of profile blocks. The profile blocks have sipes with an a-shaped or jigsaw puzzle piece-like geometry. Such a design of the sipes generates interlocking and thus stiffening of the profile blocks or bands in all directions. The interlocking is obtained owing to the mutual support effects, in particular owing to the bulge, of opposite sipe walls.
The interlocking is advantageous in particular in the new state of the tread profile because the profile depth is high and the profile sections formed by the sipes have a high degree of mobility. The interlocking leads to an advantageous stiffening of the profile block or band in all directions.
When the tread profile is in the run-in state, the profile blocks or bands are inherently stiffer than in the new state owing to the relatively small remaining profile depth. Further stiffening by interlocking is then disadvantageous.